>Super-Sized Enlightenment

>The November issue of the award-winningskirt! Magazine hits the streets this weekend. Look at the beautiful cover art by Susan Kreig. As I’ve been walking through my neighborhood this past week, drinking in the delicious fall colors, I’ve sometimes imagined artists at work capturing those images. Kudos to Susan for capturing the theme of the November issue, “The Delicious Issue.”

Here’s publisher Nikki Hardin’s description of the theme:

NOVEMBER: The Delicious Issue

Dish, cravings, good taste, junk food, comfort food, having your cake and eating it too, the good life, heavenly, mouth-watering, appetites, drop-dead gorgeous, nourishment for the body and the mind, fit for the goddesses, pleasure, delighting the senses (all six of them).

So I drafted an essay and named it “Blueberry Muffins and Cigarettes,” but Nikki preferred the title, “Super-Sized Enlightenment,” and you know, it’s grown on me. You can read the essay online here, or you can pick up a free copy of the Memphis edition of skirt! at over 350 locations in the greater Memphis area—look for the bright green magazine racks in front of coffee shops, delis and boutiques all over town. Leanne Kleinmann edits the Memphis edition, and also writes a regular column for the Commerical Appeal. Her blog is here.Skirt! is published in 22 locations now, from Santa Barbara, California to Boston to Tampa Bay, Florida. I’m amazed that no one in Mississippi has taken up the torch yet… both Jackson and Oxford would be perfect markets for skirt! But so far, the cities with skirt! print editions are: Atlanta, GA; Boston, MA; Santa Barbara/Ventura, CA; Richmond and Hampton Roads, VA; Augusta and Savannah, GA; Knoxville and Memphis, TN; Greensboro, Raleigh, Charlotte and Winston-Salem, NC; Greenville and Columbia, SC; Birmingham, AL; Lexington, KY; and Tampa Bay and Jacksonville, FL..

This will be a short post, since I’m hoping you’ll spend time reading my essay, either online (here, remember?)or in the print magazine if there’s one in your city.

But before I close, a word about publisher Nikki Hardin. She started skirt! back in 1994, when she was 50 years old. In her own words, she “wanted to start a liberal, feminist magazine.” You can listen to an interview with Nikki here. I’ve been impressed that Nikki has bought three of my essays in the past year, as most of my “platforms” are anything but liberal or feminist. This recent essay has quite a bit to say about my personal spiritual journey in Orthodoxy. Kudos to Nikki for allowing a more conservative, spiritual voice in skirt! She says she listens for a “skirt! voice” in the essays that writers submit. I’m not sure what that is, but I guess she found it in “myPod,” “Burying Saint Joseph,” and “Super-Sized Enlightenment,” so I’m sure I’ll keep sending essays her way. Thanks for reading!